Shoppers that check out a company's Web site spend a third more in stores than those that don't bother with the Internet, according to the National Retail Federation. Almost a third of those surveyed also used the Web to look at or buy something they had seen in a shop.

However, those that spend the least are Web-only purists ($121 a year on average for one store), and those that spend the most are, unsurprisingly, catalogue junkies ($292 annually). Your shop-only traditionalists come in the middle on $194, whereas those that use the Web, stores and catalogues spend a whopping $1,050. This is good news for your traditional high street stores (unless of course they don't have a Web presence) and bad news for humanity.

The survey is a damning indictment of man's (and, of course, woman's) gullibility. The more pictures of goods we see, the more "new", "latest" and "improved" formulas that are shoved in our face and the more corporate logos that we are subjected to, the more we buy. And, of course, we are all so much happier for it.

Just as an interesting aside, do you know the three most profitable brands in the world? Marlboro, Coca-Cola and Budweiser in that order. Sore throats, sugar and rat's piss is what the world is now made of. ®